Last Friday, May 22nde-Criterium (under construction), a web designed to promote participation in health was informally presented during the Conference on “PARTICIPATION IN HEALTH: NEEDS AND EXPERIENCES, an event organised by the “working group on participation and health” from CAPS

It was “informal” because e-Criterium is not yet operational. However, our British colleagues from Patient Opinion (PO) Patient Opinion, who were our luxury guests for the event, described their active experience, now 5 years old, in the UK. PO and e-Criterium share objectives and operations.

Miriam Rivas-Aguilar, Patient Opinion’s Operations and Services Manager and James Munro, Director of Informatics and Research explained how Patient Opinion works and some of the difficulties encountered during these years. In the room, Paul Hodgkin, Founder and Chief Executive of PO and Kate Ebbutt, Subscriber Support unit were also present. A lively debate with the audience followed the presentation (in spite of the fact that it was the last session of a long conference).

Patient Opinion members intervention.

We are very grateful to our colleagues from Patient Opinion, both by what we learn from them and by their generosity sharing their knowledge and their belief in common good. Thanks also to those who attended the presentation and for the interesting questions raised. They will help us a lot.

We were pleased and comforted hearing James and Miriam telling us how, at the beginning, institutions and hospitals feared a web site where people could freely share their experiences in the health services would generate a flood of criticism and negative opinions. The reality was the opposite: there are as many critical comments as congratulations. It is difficult to express greetings or send suggestions, because most patient relation units in health care institutions are only inclined at dealing with complaints and grievances.

From now until the time e-Criterium becomes operational, this blog will keep writing about what we do, how we will do it, what are our goals, who we are, the operation and everything we think can be of interest to future users.